'After Easing Quarantine Measures...' Turkey Reports Over 20,000 New COVID-19 Cases

Turkey Government Eases Quarantine Restrictions This Month... Sharp Increase After 3 Months Since December Last Year

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Recently, the number of new COVID-19 cases in Turkey, which had eased its quarantine regulations, has exceeded 20,000 again after three months.

On the 19th (local time), the Turkish Ministry of Health announced that 20,049 new COVID-19 cases were reported in one day. This is the first time since December 30th that the number of new cases in Turkey has surpassed 20,000.

As a result, the cumulative number of confirmed cases surged to 2,950,603. At this rate, it is highly likely that the cumulative number of cases will exceed 3 million next week.

Turkey has successively eased the quarantine regulations implemented to prevent the spread of COVID-19 earlier this month. The Turkish government lifted the nighttime curfew and also ended the full weekend lockdown. Restaurants and cafes were allowed to operate, and school classes were switched back to offline.

With the rapid increase in cases following the easing of quarantine measures, tensions are rising again. On the 15th, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remarked, "We must keep in mind that if quarantine rules are not properly followed, strengthening regulations will be inevitable."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.